A contrarian blog, because the majority is wrong about a lot of stuff.

December 25, 2012

Les Miserables 2012

It was pretty surprising to see such an unabashedly Christian-themed movie in this day and age. Even though it was released on Christmas Day and all, still a surprise.

It's also weird to see a movie that's like a modernized English-language opera, with disconcertingly high tech digitally-created backgrounds.

I couldn’t help but notice that Samantha Barks, the actress who played Eponine, the daughter of the innkeepers, looks ever-so-slightly multi-racial (one-quarter black?) and that just didn’t belong in the movie. I think that when a movie depicts people who are supposed to be related to each other, the actors and actresses should at least all be the same race. Especially if the movie takes place in a time and place when everyone was white.

Only watch if you can sit through more than two and a half hours of singing, and that's heavy singing of the sort I wouldn't want to listen to again on my iPod, not the lighthearted catchy tunes of the typical Broadway musical.

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Before leaving a negative comment, please read my previous post Acting and race. Especially this statement: "Once upon a time, it would have been considered an insult to point out someone’s non-white ancestry. But nowadays, it’s a huge compliment. Mixed-race people are considered the coolest people Everyone wants to be like Tiger Woods, Barack Obama, Vin Diesel or Mariah Carey. Pure white people are boring and lacking in vibrancy."

I'm not one of these One-Drop proponents. Yes, Samantha Banks may have a bit of black ancestry (probably more like 1/8 than 1/4), but she is white enough looking that I have no trouble calling her white. She's certainly appropriate for playing the part of a white character.

Shes from the Isle of Man. I have noticed that sometimes Welsh people will have an ethnic look. So its probably just features from an indigenous population of the British Isles that didn't look completely white.

Barks' mother looks part black or pacific islander but the actress looks white enough to play a white part. We've been watching "Merlin" and Guinevere is played by apparently biracial Angel Coulby. She has an interesting face but isn't astoundingly beautiful as Guinevere is described in Arthurian legend. In fact she isn't even that pretty. If they wanted to be PC and have a biracial actress they should have chosen a beautiful one. Never mind that there wouldn't have been any Africans or Arabs around during the Arthurian era (some of the knights and peasant riffraff are black).

In a web search last evening I found only *one* reference to Samantha Barks' racial background. It was on a Manx* discussion forum, and consisted of just one person saying that she was multi-racial. It's almost certainly not part of her identity.

The question might be asked whether she would identify as black if she were American, given the One-Drop Rule. Right now she doesn't have to deal with that, as that loathsome rule does not have a counterpart in Britain or, presumably, the Isle of Man. I'm going to go way out on a limb and say she would not, unless she did so in a calculated attempt to get affirmative action benefits. Even the very lightest self-identified blacks in America, such as Valerie Jarrett or Benjamin Jealous, have at least some identifiable black ancestry (though in Jealous' case he perhaps looks Mexican). Samantha Barks does not.

One slight complication is that being identified as black is not necessarily a good career move for an actress. From what I understand, movie and TV producers don't particularly favor black actresses and don't give them lucrative parts. The mulatto Halle Berry is one of the very few exceptions. As young as she is, Samantha Barks might have figured out that avoiding black self-identity might help keep her options open.

* = by Manx I mean people from the Isle of Man, not cats without tails.

"Johnny Depp looks like a white person with dark brown eyes and dark hair (although he claims to have a bit of American Indian ancestry) so maybe he does. I don't know who John Meyer is".

Johnny Depp doesn't look 100% White. John Meyer is a singer/guitarist celebrity from the NYC/tristate area. He's a Johnny Depp look alike. And none of these guys are as White looking as Ricky Martin who is Latino and mixed.

Sigma:"I think that when a movie depicts people who are supposed to be related to each other, the actors and actresses should at least all be the same race. Especially if the movie takes place in a time and place when everyone was white."

I concur; however, in the case of Barks, I'm not sure that her non-Caucasoid ancestry is sufficiently visible to bar her from playing a Caucasoid character. In the stills of her that I have seen, she looks pretty Caucasoid.

"Once upon a time, it would have been considered an insult to point out someone’s non-white ancestry. But nowadays, it’s a huge compliment. Mixed-race people are considered the coolest people Everyone wants to be like Tiger Woods, Barack Obama, Vin Diesel or Mariah Carey. Pure white people are boring and lacking in vibrancy."

Absurd examples. All of those people have obvious, unmistakeable black ancestry (Carey maybe a little less than the other three). Samantha Barks and Hailee Steinfeld are nothing like that at all.

"One slight complication is that being identified as black is not necessarily a good career move for an actress. From what I understand, movie and TV producers don't particularly favor black actresses and don't give them lucrative parts. The mulatto Halle Berry is one of the very few exceptions. As young as she is, Samantha Barks might have figured out that avoiding black self-identity might help keep her options open.

* = by Manx I mean people from the Isle of Man, not cats without tails.

I think that Steinfeld is perceived as more part Asian than part Black, and part Asian actors (Jennifer and Megan Tilly, Dean Cain, Keanu Reeves, Phoebe Cates, etc) are much more likely to get White parts than are part Black actors.Indeed, the part Asian background of many actors is almost entirely overlooked in the media, something that seldom happens with Black actors (cf Dean Cain, whose Asian ancestry went almost unmentioned when he played Superman, something that would not have happened in the case of a part Black actor playing the man of steel).

"Johnny Depp and John Meyer are less white looking than her, yet no one has called them out as having NAM genes or looking like Latinos.

[HS: Johnny Depp looks like a white person with dark brown eyes and dark hair (although he claims to have a bit of American Indian ancestry) so maybe he does. I don't know who John Meyer is.]"

Depp's Amerind ancestry is debatable:
"In a 2002 interview, Depp stated that he has Native American ancestry;[9] in 2011, he specified, "I guess I have some Native American [in me] somewhere down the line. My great-grandmother was quite a bit of Native American, she grew up Cherokee or maybe Creek Indian. Makes sense in terms of coming from Kentucky, which is rife with Cherokee and Creek."[10]" (via WIKIPEDIA)

This looks like dubious family folklore to me;note that he is not even certain of her tribal affiliation. Most people who claim Amerind ancestry in the USA don't have any. Even if Depp did have Amerind ancestry, he would be no more than 12% Amerind, assuming that his grandmother was full-blooded.

"[HS: Jeff Goldblum has a bit of a Middle Eastern look to him (although his family is supposed to be from Russia and Austria). That's not the same as looking part black which he doesn't.]"

He doesn't look part black but he looks less white than Barks. He looks Middle Eastern but he doesn't just play Middle Eastern roles. He never or rarely plays Middle Eastern roles. He plays white roles.

[HS: It's not clear that being Middle Eastern makes one not white. The Middle East is near the Caucasus, and people from the Caucasus are inherently Caucasian.]

I also agree with the comments about Johnny Depp. Regardless of whether he's pure white or part-American Indian or whatever genetically, he looks like might be part-American Indian. He looks out of place in a lot of the historical movies he's in. Sleepy Hollow for example is set in old Dutch New York, and he looks nothing like the prototypical Dutchman. Or the Sweeney Todd movie, where he plays an English barber. He doesn't look like a typical Englishman.

I gotta say, I'm a little disappointed, Sig. You watch a movie about the French Revolution, one of the most dramatic class conflicts in history, and your only analytical commentary has to do with the (imagined) racial background of some obscure actress?

"He doesn't look part black but he looks less white than Barks. He looks Middle Eastern but he doesn't just play Middle Eastern roles. He never or rarely plays Middle Eastern roles. He plays white roles.

[HS: It's not clear that being Middle Eastern makes one not white. The Middle East is near the Caucasus, and people from the Caucasus are inherently Caucasian.]"

People of Middle Eastern ancestry are Caucasoid (cf Ralph Nader, John Sununu, Danny Thomas, the Maloofs, William Peter Blatty, Michael DeBakey, etc).Hence, looking Middle Eastern means that you look White. The only exceptions are Middle Eastern people with Black ancestry.

"Only watch if you can sit through more than two and a half hours of singing, and that's heavy singing of the sort I wouldn't want to listen to again on my iPod, not the lighthearted catchy tunes of the typical Broadway musical."

? Les Mis was on Broadway for 16 years -- you never saw it, or heard the music before? And as for "lighthearted catchy", musicals often have a mix of songs, some upbeat and catchy (e.g., Les Mis's "Master of the House" or Aida's "My Strongest Suit"), and sad or dramatic songs (e.g., pretty much the rest of Les Mis).

[HS: It's not clear that being Middle Eastern makes one not white. The Middle East is near the Caucasus, and people from the Caucasus are inherently Caucasian.]

Islam is a complicating factor when it comes to evaluating the racial background of people from that region. Even though Islam is obviously not a race, we have a tendency to think of Muslims as nonwhite without respect to physical appearance.

Jay said: "I gotta say, I'm a little disappointed, Sig. You watch a movie about the French Revolution, one of the most dramatic class conflicts in history, and your only analytical commentary has to do with the (imagined) racial background of some obscure actress?"

Les Miserables is not about the French Revolution -- it's set in the early 1800s (1815 to 1832's failed Paris Uprising).

Peter:"Islam is a complicating factor when it comes to evaluating the racial background of people from that region. Even though Islam is obviously not a race, we have a tendency to think of Muslims as nonwhite without respect to physical appearance."

Yeah, one of the more annoying aspects of the modern age is the tendency to racialize Islam. Jewish and Christian Americans of Middle Eastern descent are counted as White, but not Muslims.

"Yeah, one of the more annoying aspects of the modern age is the tendency to racialize Islam."

I think the issue is that the Muslims who are top of mind for us are from Yemen/Saudi Arabia, many of whom have significant African ancestry (e.g., Osama bin Laden, "Prince" Bandar), due to slavery and manumission.

"Yeah, one of the more annoying aspects of the modern age is the tendency to racialize Islam. Jewish and Christian Americans of Middle Eastern descent are counted as White, but not Muslims."

Actually in the US, Muslim Middle Easterners have usually been classified as white for official government purposes. Partly because the government didn't provide a separate "Arab" or "Middle Eastern" category for people to identify with on government forms and the like. They recently did establish those categories.

If that small picture at the link is a fair representation of reality, Samantha Barks' mother looks more Australoid than anything else. I rather doubt that's the case, not too many Aborigines or Papuans having made their way to the Isle of Man, and in any event it would unusual enough that it would have come to public attention. Though if Mom *were* Australoid it might explain Samantha's fully Caucasian appearance. Steve Sailer and others have noted that the Australoid appearance tends to go away quickly among people of mixed background.
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Virtually all Middle Eastern and Southern European people have some black ancestry, but in certain parts of S. Europe, such as parts of Iberia, the percentages can reach 10, 15%. In parts of the Mideast, such as Yemen, it can reach above 15%.